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R – Redemption

The scene is a pawnbroker’s shop. A man enters with a gold watch. He puts it on the counter and asks how much the shopkeeper would give him (or more accurately loan him) for it. The man is given a price and hands over the watch in exchange for the money.

That money is then to be paid back after a specified amount of time, at which time, the owner will get his watch back, on payment. This is called redemption – in other words the watch is as it were bought back from the shopkeeper.

This idea of redemption is an important part of the Gospel. It is as if human beings, made in the image of God, have been “bought” by Satan. That is what happened in the garden of Eden. We do not have what is needed to leave his ownership, and God himself is willing to pay the redemption price in order to get us back.

The price is extremely high – death! The death of his Son the Lord Jesus Christ. Through him the price for our redemption was fully paid. In the words of Graham Kendrick:

The price is paid
Come let us enter in
To all that Jesus died
To make our own
For every sin
More than enough He gave
And bought our freedom
From each guilty stain

5 thoughts on “R – Redemption”

This is an interesting interpretation of the scriptures. Most exposure I’ve had has been to the notion that humans must redeem themselves through acts in free will. Is it the belief of those around you that God is redeeming humans through His actions instead?

Thank you for your comment, John. The truth is that human beings are not capable in and of themselves of doing things to redeem themselves. The Apostle Paul makes it quite clear that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came BY CHRIST JESUS. (Romans 3: 23 – 24). Jesus has redeemed us as we could not redeem ourselves. Of course, our good deeds are absolutely vital, indeed commanded. But they are as a response to what Christ has already done for us, not in any way being used to actually redeem us.

Yes, the price is extremely high. We should never take it for granted and yet how often we do. It would do us all good to meditate on the depths of these truths to soak them in and let them impact our lives more deeply. Thanks for your post. God bless, Maria at Delight Directed Living